Artist, Singapore

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Wednesday, December 30, 2009

Mr Lee Kuan Yew says that if Singaporeans fall behind to foreigners in our own society, we have only ourselves to blame. The remark is contemptible. The Singapore Democrats call on Mr Lee to apologise unreservedly to this nation and its people.

Does Mr Lee not know that Singaporeans have been slogging all these years just so that his Government can brag about GDP growth and his ministers can use it as an excuse to add all those zeroes to their salaries?

Does he not know that it was his draconian Stop-At-Two policy that caused the precipitous drop in the population’s birthrate so much so that we cannot reproduce fast enough to replace ourselves?

Does he not know that it is the stifling political climate, including his Chinese-learning policy, that has caused, and is still causing, the exodus of Singaporeans?

Does he not know that Singaporeans cannot survive on the low wages that foreign workers can?

Of course, he does. The salient question is: Does he care? With no one around him honest enough to tell him that he is wrong and with the election system and the media under his control, why should Mr Lee bother with what the people think?

The reality, if Singaporeans haven’t figured it out already, is that Mr Lee, and more importantly the PAP, cannot be held accountable. The party says and does as it pleases.

There is no mistaking that the foreign talent policy is here to stay, no matter how much it hurts the economy, society and, most of all, the people who have worked and sacrificed so much to make Singapore what it is today.

If it takes sacrificing the standard of living of Singaporeans at the hands of foreigners just to inflate the GDP by a few more percentage points, then Mr Lee and his ministers will do it for the PAP’s sake.

But this is not news. We have long ago traded our political rights for economic gain. Now that we have lost the former, we don’t have leverage over the PAP to protect the latter. We issued the cheque blank, now the PAP is cashing it in.

Importantly, does Mr Lee Hsien Loong agree with his father? If yes, he should come out and say it. If no, he must refute and admonish the MM. After all, Mr Lee Kuan Yew is a minister in his cabinet – Mentor or not. The Prime Minister is still the Prime Minister – son or not.

Chee Soon JuanSecretary-GeneralSingapore Democratic Party

Over time, the MM says, Singaporeans have become “less hard-driving and hard-striving.” This is why it is a good thing, the MM says, that the nation has welcomed so many Chinese immigrants (25 percent of the population is now foreign-born). He is aware that many Singaporeans are unhappy with the influx of immigrants, especially those educated newcomers prepared to fight for higher paying jobs. But taking a typically Darwinian stance, the MM describes the country’s new subjects as “hungry,” with parents who “pushed the children very hard.” If native Singaporeans are falling behind because “the spurs are not stuck into the hide,” that is their problem. – Excerpt from the National Geographic Magazine article